Letter to Leahy:

Second, why did you allow yourself to be spoken to in such a manner? Is TV time so precious that you have to degrade yourself and by extension the people of Vermont & your fellow Democrats to appear before the cameras?

Leahy is an interesting case. I actually think that, more than the overwhelming majority of people in Washington, he has the right instincts about this administration, really recognizes what they are, is angry about what has been done by them to this country, and feels like it's time to say that and act accordingly.

But he's also terribly inarticulate. Sometimes, when he does get emotional, he stutters incoherently and you just want to tune him out.

Worse, although he has the right instincts of decency and a sense of anger of what this administration has done to our country, he has also been in Washington way too long, and as a result, has standard Beltway conventions implanted in his brain. One such convention is that Democrats cannot use strong and extreme accusations against Republicans, especially a Republican president, without being declared to be extremsist, shrill and irresponsible.

So something in Leahy's brain stops him from telling Norah O'Donnell that OF COURSE he doesn't trust the adminstration and listing all the reasons why no rational person would. He backs off because accusing Republicans of lying is just one of those things prohibited by the Beltway speech code (he beings with a series of extremely impassioned (if not terribly clear) "Oh, really's?!?!" but then backs of completely). Even though Leahy wants to and does break that rule sometimes, on other occasions, his Washington years kick in and stop him.

Ultimately, the single best result of the 2006 elections (in my view) is that Leahy replaced Arlen Specter as Judiciary Committee Chair. Leahy generally isn't intimidated and is truly offended by wrongdoing, and will pursue the administration without much reluctance or fear. Better still, we don't need to pay any attention at all to any of Arlen Specter's bizarre and disturbing conduct. The fact that he is the Not-Arlen-Specter generally leads me to be more forgiving of Leahy's mistakes (such as his inability to artiuclate the real issues in this interview) than I otherwise would be.

I would ask you Mr. Greenwald, (after acknowledging that this catastrophe was a disaster from day one - of such great proportions that even a novice such as myself could see the mismanagement while on the ground in Iraq), I would ask you just what do you think should happen now?

The U.S. should cease occupying Iraq with its military and leave.

With all your vast knowledge of the world, the Middle East, Iraq, her people and the effects of The Surge . . .

Just to correct a misperception that seems to be plaguing you, I didn't say that the Surge was a failure. It's way too early to know. I don't believe it will work, but the point I made here is that those who claimed The Surge Was Working did so on the basis of evidence which was both absurdly incomplete and misleading. That is not the same as arguing that The Surge Has Failed.

what would you say should happen with regard to Iraq and her people? It is so very easy to naysay and have opinion about what is going wrong there. But what do you, with your great store of knowledge about the situation, recommend should happen now?

See above. I think the occupation of the U.S. on balance worsens conditions in Iraq and makes stabilization of that country less likely, not more so. I also think that our ongoing occupation entails risks that far outweigh any risks from leaving (including a likely war with Iran and/or Syria).

We may have to wait until 2008 for any meaningful action

That's probably true, but that does not mean that (a) there should be no demands that action occur prior to that, and (b) that it is acceptable (even if it's inevitable) that things will simply stay the same for the next two years.

I detest the Iraq war as much as anyone, but I think it's unrealistic to believe that one election, wherein the Democrats attained only a small majority, is going to fundamentally change the dynamics in Washington.

Changes of control of even one house of Congress are extremely rare occurrences in Washington. Changes in control of both Houses are rarer still. Democrats picked up 31 House seats, defeated 5 GOP incumbent Senators, took a large number of GOP-held Governorships, and changed control of 4 GOP-held state legislatures.

By contrast, Republicans did not defeat a single incumbent Congressional Democrat or Democratic Governor, only the second time in our history that one major party failed to defeat an incumbant. The 2006 election results were historic in many ways, and its significance should not be minimized.

I hear many of my fellow liberal/leftists constantly repeating the idea that "the public spoke in 2006" as if that were the only vote that actually counted. But didn't the public speak in 2002 and 2004 as well, and didn't they essentially vote for war? And isn't two-thirds of the Senate still represented by those elections?

Recent public opinion counts more than historic public opinion. The views of Americans in 2006 regarding the war are, for reasons too obvious to require explanation, more significant than their views in 2002 or 2004.

Individual elections can be the beginning of a trend (1932) or they can be an aberration (1976); it's difficult to argue that a single off-year election is anything but a point-in-time reflection of the public's mood.

Polls reflect, and have long reflected that Americans are opposed to the war, believe they were deliberately deceived into supporting it, and believe the costs outweigh the benefits. This is hardly some type of aberrational or sudden development.